Prisoners in Tehran’s Evin prison blocked guards from transferring political inmate Ehsan Afrashteh for imminent execution on espionage charges, leading to a tense standoff inside the facility, former inmate and activist Mehdi Mahmoudian said on Tuesday.
Afrashteh had previously left Iran for Turkey, where he was reportedly approached by Israeli agents, but his father convinced him to return voluntarily after contacting security officials, Mahmoudian said.
Upon his return, Afrashteh was sentenced to death on charges of collaborating with foreign intelligence services.
His case had never been reported before, as he had been promised clemency if he refrained from publicizing it, Iran International has learned.
However, human rights activists revealed his identity and case on Tuesday as he was being transferred for execution.
Mahmoudian said the Evin Prison confrontation took place in Ward 7, Hall 12, where prisoners barricaded the doors to stop Afrashteh’s transfer. He described the situation as “highly tense.”
Sources told Iran International that the prisoners successfully prevented his execution on Tuesday. However, it remains unclear whether the authorities plan to carry out the hanging at a later date.
The report comes amid growing concern among activists over the number of political prisoners in Iran facing the death penalty, with around 70 reportedly at risk of execution.
“The Caspian Sea belongs only to its five coastal states – Iran, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan – and they will resolve related issues themselves,” navy commander Shahram Irani said at a gathering of naval chiefs in St. Petersburg.
Irani said the littoral states had developed “very good relations” in security, economic and environmental fields and had the capability to ensure stability without foreign involvement. “There is no place in the Caspian Sea for extra-regional powers,” he said.
He said a recent joint exercise in Iran’s Bandar Anzali and along the southern Caspian coast had strengthened cooperation, and that another drill would be held soon.
Iran maintains two distinct naval forces. The army navy, commanded by Irani, operates in the Gulf of Oman, the Indian Ocean, and the Caspian Sea, while the Revolutionary Guard navy controls the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz.
In August, Iran’s army navy fired a range of anti-ship cruise missiles in large-scale exercises in the Gulf of Oman and northern Indian Ocean, following a separate Iran-Russia drill in the Caspian a month earlier. Officials said the systems were radar-evading and high-precision, and warned that any new conflict with Israel would bring a stronger response from Tehran.
The Caspian Sea, bordered only by the five littoral states, has long been treated by Tehran and Moscow as off-limits to foreign militaries.
Located near the city of Kermanshah, Sarab Niloufar -- famous for its blue lotus flowers and migratory birds -- has turned into cracked earth after years of over-extraction of groundwater, repeated droughts, and unregulated farming, Tasnim reported on Tuesday.
Provincial authorities blamed excessive water use for crop irrigation, illegal wells, and reduced rainfall for the collapse of the lake’s ecosystem.
Soraya Ghorbani, deputy head of Kermanshah’s Department of Environment, said this week that more than half of the factors driving the crisis stem from “repeated planting of water-intensive crops and poor management of groundwater resources.”
She warned that even heavy rainfall would no longer be enough to restore the body of water due to severe shortage of its groundwater.
Experts say the drying of Sarab Niloufar mirrors a national trend of environmental decline.
A new satellite-based study shows that Iran is undergoing severe land subsidence across 106 regions covering about 31,400 square kilometers -- an area roughly the size of Belgium -- mainly due to excessive groundwater extraction for agriculture.
Iran’s water reservoirs have reached their lowest levels in decades -- with only 35% of dam capacity remaining, according to government data -- while 19 major dams are nearing depletion and three have already run dry.
Across the north, wetlands in Golestan Province have also shrunk dramatically after years of drought and dam construction, leaving vast tracts of land barren and driving away hundreds of thousands of migratory birds.
Environmentalists warn that the loss of these wetlands could turn fertile regions into new dust storm hotspots, worsening air quality and threatening nearby farms.
In western Iran, the crisis has both ecological and social dimensions. Once a key habitat and tourist attraction, Sarab Niloufar supported local livelihoods and served as a natural water reservoir.
Officials say its disappearance shows how climate change, mismanagement, and overuse are converging to push Iran’s fragile water systems toward collapse.
“Without immediate national action on sustainable agriculture, groundwater control and interprovincial water sharing, more wetlands will follow the same fate,” Ghorbani said.